“I do,” she said, with the uncertain violet light in her eyes again. “It’s bad enough, goodness knows, but I — I am very sure you did not mean — —”
“You are perfectly right; I mean well, as they say of all chumps. And the worst of it is,” he added, wildly, “I never before knew that I was a chump! I never before saw any symptoms. Would you believe me, I never in all my life have been such an idiot as I was in those first few minutes that I crossed your path. How on earth to account for it; how to explain, to ask pardon, to — to ever forget it! As long as I live I shall wake at night with the dreadful chagrin burning my ears off. Isn’t it the limit? And I — I shouldn’t have felt so crushed if it had been anybody excepting you — —”
“I do not understand,” she said gravely.
“I do,” he muttered.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE MASTER KNOT OF HUMAN FATE
The conversation dropped there: she gazed thoughtfully out upon the Teutonic magnificence of One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street by gaslight; he, arms folded, relapsed into bitter contemplation of the breakfast-food. So immersed he became in the picture of an unctuous little boy stuffing himself to repletion under the admiring smirk of a benevolent parent that he forgot his manacles, and attempting to stretch his cramped leg, returned to his senses in a hurry.
“I think,” she suggested, quietly, “that, if you care to stretch, I wouldn’t mind it, either. Can you do it discreetly?”
“I’ll try,” he said in a whisper. “Shall I count three?”
She nodded.
“One, two, three,” he counted, and they cautiously stretched their legs.
“I now know how the Siamese twins felt,” he said, sullenly. “No wonder they died young.”
She laughed — a curious, little laugh which was one of the most agreeable sounds he had ever heard.
“I take it for granted,” he said, “that you will always cherish for me a wholesome and natural hatred.”
“I shall never see you again,” she replied, simply.
That silenced him for a while; he fished about in his intellect to find mitigating circumstances. There was none that he knew of.
“Suppose — under pleasanter auspices, we should some day meet?” he suggested.
“We never shall.”
“How do you know?”
“It is scarcely worth while speculating upon such an improbability,” she said, coldly.
“But — suppose — —”
She turned toward him. “You desire to know what my attitude would be toward you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“It would be one of absolutely amiable indifference — if you really wish to know,” she said so sweetly that he was quite sure his entire body shrank at least an inch.
“By the way,” she added, “the last passenger has left this car.”
“By Jove!” he exclaimed, sitting bolt upright. “Now’s our time. Would you mind — —”
“With the very greatest pleasure,” she said, quickly; “please count one, two, three.”
He counted; there came a discreet movement, and from under the hem of her gown there appeared a dainty shoe, accompanied by a larger masculine companion. He bent down, his fingers seemed to be all thumbs, and he grew redder and redder.
“Perhaps I can do it,” she said, stripping off her gloves and bending over. A stray tendril of bright hair brushed his cheek as their heads almost came together.
“Goodness, what a dreadful knot!” she breathed, her smooth fingers busy. The perfume of her hair, her gloves, her gown thrilled him; he looked at her face, now flushed with effort; his eyes fell on her delicate hands, her distractingly pretty foot, in its small, polished shoe.
“Patience,” she said, calmly; “this knot must give way — —”
“If it doesn’t — —”
“Madness lies that way,” she breathed. “Wait! Don’t dare to move your foot!”
“We are approaching a station; shall I cut it?” he asked.
“No — wait! I think I have solved it. There!” she cried with a breathless laugh. “We are free!”
There was not an instant to lose, for the train had already stopped; they arose with one accord and hurried out into the silvery Harlem moonlight — which does not, perhaps, differ from normal moonlight, although it seemed to him to do astonishing tricks with her hair and figure there on the deserted platform, turning her into the loveliest and most unreal creature he had ever seen in all his life.
“There ought to be a train pretty soon,” he said cheerfully.
She did not answer.
“Do you mind my speaking to you now that we are — —”
“Untethered?” she said with a sudden little flurry of laughter. “Oh, no; why should I care what happens to me now, after taking a railroad journey tied to the shoe-strings of an absent-minded stranger?”
“Please don’t speak so — so heartlessly — —”
“Heartlessly? What have hearts to do with this evening’s lunacy?” she asked, coolly.
He had an idea, an instinctive premonition, but it was no explanation to offer her.
Far away up the track the starlike headlight of a train glittered: he called her attention to it, and she nodded. Neither spoke for a long while; the headlight grew larger and yellower; the vicious little train came whizzing in, slowed, halted with a jolt. He put her aboard and followed into a car absolutely empty save for themselves. When they had gravely seated themselves side by side she looked around at him and said without particular severity: “I can see no reason for our going back together; can you?”
“Yes,” he answered with such inoffensive and guileless conviction that she was silent.
He went on presently: “Monstrous as my stupidity is, monumental ass as I must appear to you, I am, as a matter of fact, rather a decent fellow — the sort of man a girl need not flay alive to punish.”
“I do not desire to punish you. I do not expect to know you — —”
“Do you mean ‘expect,’ or ‘desire’?”
“I mean both, if you insist.” There was a sudden glimmer in her clear eyes that warned him; but he went on:
“I beg you to give me a chance to prove myself not such a clown as you think me.”
“But I don’t think about you at all!” she explained.
“Won’t you give me a chance?”
“How?”
“Somebody you — we both know — I mean to say — —”
“You mean, will I sit here and compare notes with you to find out whether we both know Tom, Dick, and Harry? No, I will not.”
“I mean — so that — if you don’t mind — somebody can vouch for me — —”
“No,” she said, decisively.
“I mean — I would be so grateful — and I admire you tremendously — —”
“Please do not say that.”
“No — I won’t, of course; I don’t admire anybody very much, and I didn’t dream of being offensive — only — I — now that I’ve known you — —”
“You don’t know me,” she observed, icily.
“No, of course, I don’t know you at all; I’m only talking to you — —”
“A nice comment upon us both,” she observed; “could anything be more pitifully common?”
“But being tied together, how could we avoid talking about it?” he pleaded. “When you’re tied up like that to a person, it’s per — permitted to speak, you know — —”
“We talked entirely too much,” she said with decision. “Now we are not tied at all, and I do not see what decent excuse we can have for conversing about anything.... Do you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“What excuse?” she asked.
“Well, for one thing, a sense of humour. A nice spectacle we should be, you in one otherwise empty car, I in another, bored to death — —”
“Do you think,” she said, impatiently, “that I require anybody’s society to save myself from ennui?”
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“No — but I require — —”
“That is impertinent!”
“I didn’t mean to be; you must know that!” he said.
She looked out of the window.
“I wonder,” he began in a cheerful and speculative tone, taking courage from her silence— “I wonder whether you know — —”
“I will not discuss people I know with you,” she said.
“Then let us discuss people I know,” he rejoined, amiably.
“Please don’t.”
“Please let me — —”
“No.”
“Are you never going to forgive me?” he asked.
“I shall forget,” she said, meaningly.
“Me?”
“Certainly.”
“Please don’t — —”
“You are always lingering dangerously close to the border of impertinence,” she said. “I do not wish to be rude or ungracious. I have been unpardonably annoyed, and — when I consider my present false situation — I am annoyed still more. Let me be unmistakably clear and concise; I do not feel any — anger — toward you; I have no feeling whatever toward you; and I do not ever expect to see you again. Let it rest so. I will drop you my best curtsey when you lift your hat to me at Twenty-ninth Street. Can a guilty man ask more?”
“Your punishment is severe,” he said, flushing.
“My punishment? Who am I punishing, if you please?”
“Me.”
“What folly! I entertain no human emotions toward you; I have no desire to punish you. How could I punish you — if I wished to?”
“By doing what you are doing.”
“And what is that?” she asked rather softly.
“Denying me any hope of ever knowing you.”
“You are unfair,” she said, biting her lip. “I do not deny you that ‘hope,’ as you choose to call it. Consider a moment. Had you merely seen me on the train you could not have either hoped or even desired ever to know me. Suppose for a moment—” she flushed, but her voice was cool and composed “suppose you were attracted to me — thought me agreeable to look at? You surely would never have dreamed of speaking to me and asking such a thing. Why, then, should you take unfair advantage of an accident and ask it now? You have no right to — nor have I to accord you what you say you desire.”
She spoke very sweetly, meeting his eyes without hesitation.
“May I reply to you?” he asked soberly.
“Yes — if you wish.”
“You will not take it as an affront?”
“Not — not if—” She looked at him. “No,” she said.
“Then this is my reply: Wherever I might have seen you I should instantly have desired to know you. That desire would have caused you no inquietude; I should have remained near you without offense, perfectly certain in my own mind that somehow and somewhere I must manage to know you; and to that end — always without offense, and without your knowledge — I should have left the train when you did, satisfied myself where you lived, and then I should have scoured the city, and moved heaven and earth to find the proper person who might properly ask your permission to receive me. That is what I should have done if I had remained thirty seconds in the same car with you.... Are you offended?”
“No,” she said.
They journeyed on for some time, saying nothing; she, young face bent, sensitive lips adroop, perhaps considering what he said; he, cradling his golf-sticks, trying to keep his eyes off her and succeeding very badly.
“I wonder what your name is?” she said, looking up at him.
“James Seabury,” he replied so quickly that it was almost pathetic.
She mused, frowning a little: “Where have I heard your name?” she asked with an absent-minded glance at him.
“Oh — er — around, I suppose,” he suggested, vaguely.
“But I have heard it. Are you famous?”
“Oh, no,” he said quickly. “I’m an architect, or ought to be. Fact is, I’m so confoundedly busy golfing and sailing and fishing and shooting and hunting that I have very little time for business.”
“What a confession!” she exclaimed, laughing outright; and the beauty that transfigured her took his breath away. But her laughter was brief, her eyes grew more serious than ever: “So you are not in business?”
“No.”
“I am employed,” she said calmly, looking at him.
“Are you?” he said, astonished.
“So, you see,” she added gaily, “I should have very little time to see anybody — —”
“You mean me?”
“Yes, you, for example.”
“You don’t work all the while, do you?” he asked.
“Usually.”
“All the time?”
“I dine — at intervals.”
“That’s the very thing!” he said with enthusiasm.
She looked at him gravely.
“Don’t you see,” he went on, “as soon as you’ll let me know you my sister will call, and then you’ll call, and then my sister will invite — —”
She was suddenly laughing again — a curious laugh, quite free and unguarded.
“Of course, you’ll tell your sister how we met,” she suggested; “she’ll be so anxious to know me when she hears all about it.”
“Do you suppose,” he said coolly, “that I don’t know one of my own sort whenever or however I happen to meet her?”
“Men cannot always tell; I grant you women seldom fail in placing one another at first glance; but men rarely possess that instinct.... Besides, I tell you I am employed.”
“What of it? Even if you wore the exceedingly ornamental uniform of a parlor-maid it could not worry me.”
“Do you think your sister would hasten to call on a saleswoman at Blumenshine’s?” she asked carelessly.
“Nobody wants her to,” he retorted, amused.
“Or on a parlor-maid — for example?”
“Let her see you first; you can’t shock her after that.... Are you?” he inquired gently — so gently, so pleasantly, that she gave him a swift look that set his heart galloping.
“Do you really desire to know me?” she asked. But before he could answer she sprang up, saying: “Good gracious! This is Twenty-eighth Street! It seems impossible!”
He could not believe it, either, but he fled after her, suit-case and golf-bag swinging; the gates slammed, they descended the stairs and emerged on Twenty-eighth Street. “I live on Twenty-ninth Street,” she said; “shall we say good-bye here?”
“I should think not!” he replied with a scornful decision that amazed her, but, curiously enough, did not offend her. They walked up Twenty-eighth Street to Fifth Avenue, crossed, turned north under the white flare of electricity, then entered Twenty-ninth Street slowly, side by side, saying nothing.
CHAPTER XIX
THE TIME AND THE PLACE
She halted at the portal of an old-fashioned house which had been turned into an apartment hotel — a great brownstone mansion set back from the street. A severely respectable porter in livery appeared and bowed to her, but when his apoplectic eyes encountered Seabury’s his shaven jaw dropped and a curious spasm appeared to affect his knees.
She did not notice it; she turned to Seabury and, looking him straight in the face, held out her hand.
“Good-night,” she said. “Be chivalrous enough to find out who I am — without sacrificing me.... You — you have not displeased me.”
He took her hand, held it a moment, then released it.
“I live here,” he said calmly.
A trifle disconcerted, she searched his face. “That is curious,” she said uneasily.
“Oh, not very. I have bachelor apartments here; I’ve been away from town for three months. Here is my pass-key,” he added, laughing, and to the strangely paralyzed porter he tossed his luggage with a nod and a pleasant: “You didn’t expect me for another month, William, did you?”
“That explains it,” she
said smiling, a tint of excitement in her pretty cheeks. “I’ve been here only for a day or two.”
They were entering now, side by side; he followed her into the elevator. The little red-haired boy, all over freckles and gilt buttons, who presided within the cage, gaped in a sort of stupor when he saw Seabury.
“Well, Tommy,” inquired that young gentleman, “what’s the matter?”
“What floor?” stammered Tommy, gazing wildly from one to the other.
“The usual one, in my case,” said Seabury, surprised.
“The usual one, in my case,” said the girl, looking curiously at the agitated lad. The cage shot up to the third floor; they both rose, and he handed her out. Before either could turn the elevator hurriedly dropped, leaving them standing there together. Then, to the consternation of Seabury, the girl quietly rang at one of the only two apartments on the floor, and the next instant a rather smart-looking English maid opened the door.
Seabury stared; he turned and examined the corridor; he saw the number on the door of the elevator shaft; he saw the number over the door.
“There seems to be,” he began slowly, “something alarming the matter with me to-night. I suppose — I suppose it’s approaching dementia, but do you know that I have a delusion that this apartment is mine?”
“Yours!” faltered the girl, turning pale.
“Well — it was once — before I left town. Either that or incipient lunacy explains my hallucination.”
The maid stood at the door gazing at him in undisguised astonishment. Her pretty mistress looked at her, looked at Seabury, turned and cast an agitated glance along the corridor — just in time to catch a glimpse of the curly black whiskers and the white and ghastly face of the proprietor peering at them around the corner. Whiskers and pallor instantly vanished. She looked at Seabury.
“Please come in a moment, Mr. Seabury,” she said calmly. He followed her into the familiar room decorated with his own furniture, and lined with his own books, hung with his own pictures. At a gesture from her he seated himself in his own armchair; she sat limply in a chair facing him.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 570
